36 Winter Buds and Tree Forms 



CHAPTER V 



WINTER BUDS AND TREE FORMS 



Season. Second week in November. 

 Materials required for each pupil. 



Twigs of the following trees, each showing about 

 six buds and leaf scars : horse-chestnut, ash, beech, 

 sycamore, elm, willow. 



When the trees have lost their leaves their active 

 life ceases for a time and they sleep until the warmer 

 weather comes. All the new leaves and flowers that 

 will be wanted in the spring are therefore made before- 

 hand during the autumn and, in the form of buds, are 

 wrapped up tightly to protect them from the winter's 

 cold winds and frosts. These young buds are placed 

 where they are least likely to get knocked off, namely 

 in the corners where the leaf stem grows out from the 

 twig. This corner is called the axil of a leaf and 

 although sometimes, as in the elm, the buds may be 

 a little shifted to one side, you will nearly always find 

 a bud in the leaf axil and nowhere else (Fig. 20). 



When dead leaves drop off in the autumn they leave 

 behind them a mark where they were fastened on to 

 the twig. In some kinds of trees this is small and hard 

 to see, but in the horse-chestnut it is a big scar some- 

 thing like a horse's hoof in shape with marks like nails 



